Page 20 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE THE NEW MAINSTREAM

Civilian practitioners have embraced acu-
puncture in an even bigger way. Leading Ameri can
hospitals like the Mayo Clinic and the Cleve land
Clinic offer it as part of their alternative-care pack-
ages. And numerous groups, including the Ameri-
can Medical Association, have succeeded in getting
a few states, including California, to designate acu-
puncture an “essential health benefit” under the Af-

fordable Care Act. The move requires health insur-
ers to include it on their list of covered services.
But just because a treatment is popular—even
one that has been around for millennia —that doesn’t
guarantee that it is effective. If it were, we’d long
since have cleansed, Rolfed and low- carbed our way
to immortality. More and more, though, acupunc-

ture is getting the close em pirical scrutiny that mod-
ern drugs and medical procedures are routinely sub-
jected to. And the results are, well, mixed.
A growing body of experimental evidence shows
that acupuncture does indeed work, in some cases
extraordinarily well. Another body suggests that it
may very well work, but not for the reasons believers
think. And yet a third body of “beats me” findings
is sufficient to keep par tisans on both sides arguing.

In any case, some thing is clearly going on—and that
something may, at least in some cases, be a cure for
what ails you.

Crunching the numbers
afTer colds and flu, pain is The mosT com-

mon cause of visits to physicians—with lower -back As the applications for acupuncture expand, the
pain clocking in at No. 1 on that very long list. Four numbers of patients who are trying it increases.
out of five of us will eventually suffer from back pain
of some kind. Untreated—or in adequately treated—
it’s the most common reason for disability claims and exercise, along with the drugs they were taking.
and employee absenteeism. At the end of the five weeks, the subjects were
Acupuncture is often recommended as one way examined to determine how much pain relief they’d
to treat the problem. In 2007, investigators at the gotten and to what extent their physical function-
University of Regensburg in Germany gath ered a ing had improved. The results: 47.6% of the real-

group of 1,162 patients with long histories of lower- acupuncture group experienced sig nificant relief
back pain to determine whether it could actually in both categories; in the sham -acupuncture group,
make a difference. 44.2% did. For the rest, it was just 27.4%. The re-
Patients were given two half-hour treatment searchers sunnily concluded that “acupuncture
sessions per week for five weeks. About a third of gives physicians a promising and effective treat-
the group underwent traditional, lower-back acu- ment option for lower-back pain, with few adverse
puncture, with needles inserted at the prescribed effects or contra-indications.”

points. Another third got sham acupuncture, which But does it? There is no denying that both groups
involved real needles being inserted at random spots that received some kind of acupuncture did better
on the lower back. The remaining third received con- than the one that didn’t. But there’s also no denying
ventional treatment, consisting of physical therapy that the results of the sham pro cedure make the idea

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